Grey Zone Special Report: Hamas Attacks Israel. Retaliation or Iranian Stratagem?
A special report by John M. Larrier of Defense Bulletin
Hey team,
I hope you have all had a great week, have kept safe and are well all things considering.
This week, we have a very special edition of the Grey Zone Situation Report. We have an analytical piece written by John M. Larrier of Defence Bulletin. John is an analyst and writer for the Lethal Minds Journal and Bulletin From the Borderlands, which brings together some of the best analysts across online discourse and gives readers an in-depth ‘So What’ on the worlds most important issues.
He shares an affinity for defence issues, military history, military strategy, and how they all interact and interconnect across the dynamic geopolitical environment.
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On October 7th Hamas, the Palestinian militant organization, launched a multifaceted and multi-pronged attack on Israel from the Gaza Strip. Between the tactics employed by Hamas in Israel and Israeli retaliatory strikes, both sides have suffered over 1,000 combatants and civilians killed, with thousands more wounded. This piece will not seek to delve into the play by play coverage, but instead will clarify some of the geopolitical stratagems at work. I’ll cover some important points of note centered around Iranian involvement. The now defunct Saudi-Israeli rapprochement process and the potential for increased Iranian involvement due to recent developments being the main focus.
Over the past couple of months, with U.S. support, Saudi Arabia has entered into rapprochement talks with Israel. What’s rapprochement? Rapprochement is the process of countries at odds with each other geopolitically normalizing relations with each other. This is generally after a period of contention. Amidst the increased tempo of Israeli strikes in Gaza, preparation for the inevitable ground campaign, Saudi Arabia has put the plan to normalize ties with Israel on hold. Citing the high number of Palestinian deaths and Israel’s rhetoric surrounding the ground campaign as grounds for halting the talks.
Rapprochement is the process of countries at odds with each other geopolitically normalizing relations with each other. This is generally after a period of contention.
Enter Iran
In a 2022 congressional hearing Lieutenant General Scott Berrier, the U.S.’s Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, testified in front of the Congressional Armed Services Committee. He spoke on the Uptempo of Iranian meddling in the region, and highlighted a couple key points of note.
“Iran also seeks to prevent Israel from normalizing its relations with Arab states, combining threats from its proxies and partners with diplomatic outreach.”
Keeping this in mind, let's take a quick look at Hamas’s tactics and how they could be used by Iran to induce this Saudi reaction. Hamas has consistently employed the strategy of attacking Israel and then claiming victim status after the inevitable Israeli retaliatory strikes or incursions into Gaza. Knowing this and knowing Hamas’s connections to the IRGC, it’s quite easy to subordinate this attack to Iran’s ongoing strategy of anti-Saudi-Israeli rapprochement.
While many have been speculating that this attack is essentially a reaction to the perceived Palestinian oppression, there’s not a lot of indicators that show this is the case. The level of planning and the intelligence that Hamas used to carry out these attacks indicate that they not only liaised with Hezbollah to the north of Israel, but directly with the IRGC, Iran’s Islamic Republican Guard Corps. Vehicle identification cards showing weak points of Israeli armored vehicles, Hezbollah's statements on the threshold for their involvement, and Iranian support indicate Iranian involvement by with and through Hezbollah at the very least.
Both Iran and Hezbollah have indicated that any increase in involvement from the U.S. will be met with increased involvement from Hezbollah and Iran itself. Hezbollah specifically has said that they will enter the ground war should Israel enter Gaza. There’s an argument to be made that the withdrawal of the Saudis was the mission of this attack and that Iran’s threshold for direct involvement is now much higher than it was before. So far Iran has benefited greatly from these attacks by killing the rapprochement process.
Is the process dead? For now, yes, but if Israel actually deals with Hamas instead of caving in to international pressure not to go into Gaza, they will ensure that Iran does not have the ability to use Gaza as a beachhead for future asymmetric anti-rapprochement stratagems.
The situation is still ongoing and many things are still uncertain. It will be interesting to see if Iran’s rhetoric stays the same, increases in aggressiveness, or abates now that the Saudis have withdrawn from the rapprochement process.
- John M. Larrier
ENDS